


on my mind

by khattikeri



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bad Flirting, Denial of Feelings, Humor, M/M, Teenage Stupidity, Telepathy, akechi goro is a disaster gay. there i said it, tormenting your telepathic boyfriend with mental subterfuge and the power of strawberry chapstick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:54:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29190375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/khattikeri/pseuds/khattikeri
Summary: Kurusu has the absolute gall to pick up the street cat and hold it out in front of Goro like it's a prize he won at a fair. "See? Cute, right?"You're cuter,Goro's head immediately supplies. He clenches his fist in his jacket pocket so hard he's certain he's torn a hole in his glove.Endearing. What the hell is he doing to my head? Fuck. This evil wretch of a boy’s teaming up with the cat to psychologically manipulate me.Kurusu blinks at him, ears pink. "Akechi?"I WANT TO GRAB YOUR RIDICULOUS CURLY HAIR AND KISS YOU SO STUPID YOU FORGET WHAT WORDS EVEN ARE,Goro screams in his head.I FUCKING HATE YOU, YOU CHARMING PIECE OF GARBAGE.=Or: Akira is a telepath. Goro has no clue.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 48
Kudos: 470





	on my mind

**Author's Note:**

> this whole thing started back in like. october???? bc i couldn't get the idea out of my head, and also i just love writing goro pov bc he is so......................... goro. the mental image of akira being sweet on cats + goro flying into a rage bc he thinks it's cute but is too emotionally constipated to realize that these feelings r a crush and not actual feelings of animosity killed me. bye. [maruki voice] i needed to make it reality
> 
> anyway! telepath!akira is interesting to me as a lens to view his innate need to please others and know everything beforehand so others rely on him. however. instead of doing anything deeply analytical or moving with that idea, i decided to use it for senseless rom-com stupidity. you're welcome. let's begin!

It starts when Goro Akechi takes refuge in Leblanc one evening.

He has _so_ much work. Stupid high school on top of stupid TV appearances with stupid vapid variety show presenters on top of stupid assassin work from his stupid son of a bitch politician father who wouldn’t know how to do shit himself even if someone took a brick and hit him over his stupid ugly bald head with it, and also break his stupid fucking orange sunglasses in half. 

But Goro is fine. He’s alright. A quiet place is all Goro needs, just to take a quick breather before getting back out and having to plaster the same princely smile on his face--

“Would you like our special?” the barista asks, interrupting Goro’s thoughts. He’s the only other one in the cafe, toweling off a mug behind the counter. “On the house.”

Goro pauses. He usually drinks shitty canned coffee from the crappy vending machine his landlord refuses to maintain upkeep on. Everything in it expired back in 2011 and tastes vaguely like liquid rust. 

But that’s not really indicative of anything. Goro Akechi is the pinnacle of health. Really. It’s nice of this barista, but Goro should just politely turn him down--

_“Please,”_ the barista insists, setting down the mug and giving Goro a desperate stare. Now that Goro examines his face, the barista looks around Goro’s age, and somewhat more ill in the face than he was moments before. “You’re beyond stressed, please just take a cup.” 

Goro blinks. How could the barista tell that? He wasn’t showing it that much on his face, was he?

Interesting. 

_Interesting._

Why not humor him?

=

When he sees his own barista at the TV station with his high school class a week later, and the barista turns out to be a _cheeky little shit_ outside of his cafe job, Goro decides he actually wants to spend more time with him.

Regardless of the fact that Kurusu Akira is one of the Phantom Thieves that Goro is tasked with getting rid of.

=

Some months later, Goro concludes that his bloodstream is 85% coffee and his heart is 100% screwed. 

Kurusu keeps talking to him. It’s normal for baristas to be quiet, or maybe make idle chit-chat while customers are in the store. But aimlessly hanging out with customers after shifts end is not usually part of a barista’s itinerary-- or so Goro would assume. 

Even after exchanging phone numbers, Goro hadn’t expected Kurusu to actually agree to go out-- multiple times, at that. 

Most unexpected is how Kurusu pays attention to him and doesn’t pander to him as a celebrity. They just… talk. And spend time together. It’s nice. People would always scorn or ignore Goro before he became the second Detective Prince; after the fact, a third group popped up that would over-act around him, cooing over a make-believe media ghost, a mere fractional shadow of who he really is.

It sends a strange tingly feeling up Goro’s spine to have Kurusu do none of the above. Goro’s never experienced this before.

Goro doesn’t understand it at all. He decides he hates it. 

Goro realizes how much of a problem this hatred is when he leaves Leblanc with Kurusu in tow to go out, only for the other boy to yank him back in order to coo at a street cat lingering a few paces away.

“Hiiiii sweetie,” Kurusu clicks his tongue, making _pspsps_ noises at the creature as if it’ll do anything. He runs back into Leblanc and brings back some cat treats-- no doubt Morgana’s. “You poor girl, are you hungry?”

“How can you be so sure the cat’s a girl?” Goro’s eyes widen, curious. “It could be a tomcat.”

“Nope, she’s a girl,” Kurusu says, wiggling his fingers to keep the cat’s attention. “I’ve never seen her before, but I know. Don’t sweat it.” He turns his gaze to the cat. “Heeere, kitty. C’mere just a second…”

The cat meows belligerently but obliges, to Goro’s shock. Kurusu tosses the treats to the ground and the cat eats, smacking its tongue all the while. Kurusu’s dopey smile watching the animal sends an army of arrows straight to Goro’s chest.

Terrible. It must be heartburn, or a nasty case of indigestion. Goro makes a mental note to inform Mr. Sakura that his charge is making Leblanc’s curry wrong. 

Even when the cat finishes, the two of them are still stuck right outside Leblanc, because the stupid furry thing seems to have gotten attached to Kurusu. It trots figure-eights around Kurusu’s ankles, rubbing appreciatively against his legs in a vain attempt to coax more treats out of Kurusu’s generous hands. 

_You’d think it hadn’t eaten in years,_ Goro thinks, faintly miffed. He enjoys just about everything when it’s with Kurusu, but he’d really like to be back on schedule with their plans. 

Of course, it’s not like he can just _say that_ out loud. He has an image. 

So he mentally badmouths the cat instead. 

_Carry on, wayward feline. Scram. Skedaddle. Shoo, you boy-stealing harlot. You thieving four-legged temptress. Go bother the goth woman at the pharmacy, I know she keeps expensive tuna there specifically for vagabonds like you. Go! Away! Let me have this date! Fuck!_

Kurusu muffles something that sounds like a weird mix between laughter, choking, and a cough into his hand, and the noise Goro snaps out of his thoughts. 

Right. Goro Akechi, liar detective extraordinaire, should not be thinking such terrible things, and certainly not about a mere cat. Instead he directs a winning fake smile at Kurusu. “You like cats quite a bit, don’t you.” 

"I love cats," Kurusu giggles, hiding the soft noise and softer smile behind an embarrassed, loose fist over his mouth. He hunches down, crouching on the balls of his feet, and affectionately rubs under the street cat's chin. "They might seem prickly at first, but they’re sweet."

Goro's heart does something like a somersault in his chest. He wants to take that sappy, gooey feeling out and shoot it dead. 

Kurusu has the absolute gall to pick up the street cat and hold it out in front of Goro like it's a prize he won at a fair. "See? Cute, right?"

_You're cuter,_ Goro's head immediately supplies. He clenches his fist in his jacket pocket so hard he's certain he's torn a hole in his glove. _Endearing. What the hell is he doing to my head? Fuck. This evil wretch of a boy’s teaming up with the cat to psychologically manipulate me._

Kurusu blinks at him, ears pink. "Akechi?"

_I WANT TO GRAB YOUR RIDICULOUS CURLY HAIR AND KISS YOU SO STUPID YOU FORGET WHAT WORDS EVEN ARE,_ Goro screams in his head. _I FUCKING HATE YOU, YOU CHARMING PIECE OF GARBAGE._

"A-Akechi?" Kurusu asks a bit more emphatically, ears and cheeks now considerably more red. "Are you--"

"Yes?" Goro responds aloud with a prince-like tilt of his head. "Ahaha, sorry, I got lost in thought again..." 

He scratches his cheek and gives a slightly-less-than-dazzling smile, feigning awkwardness. The cat had since squirmed out of Kurusu's grasp, clearly deciding that Goro's love troubles were not worth its while. 

"I, um--" Kurusu chuckles, face still red as he twists a strand of hair and quirks up the edge of his lip. "I asked if you were alright." Kurusu bites his lip, the cruelest tease, and Goro finds his mind flying once again into a rage. 

_Smarmy, smug, attractive, arrogant bastard--_

_What was that bit in the middle?_ Robin Hood asks from deep within, perplexed.

_Arrogant bastard,_ Loki replies thinly. How lovely, even the usually silent Loki is talking.

_No, before that,_ Robin Hood insists.

_Smarmy and smug,_ Loki sneers.

_Shut up,_ Goro interrupts the two. Damn personae, always making a fuss. "I'm alright, yes," he replies to Kurusu. 

Kurusu's gaze is soft, but teasing as he grins. "You get lost in thought often, honey. Something on your mind?"

_Someone._ Goro quashes all daydreams of handholding and prancing merrily in meadows, attempting to replace it with cackling laughter and tactically bloody warfare. _It's you, you irritating son of a bitch._

"Would you like to go out with me?" Goro asks suddenly. Robin Hood gasps. Loki returns to silence, though this time of the mortified variety.

Kurusu's eyes widen behind his glasses. "Out-- where exactly?" his voice cracks. “Aren’t we going to the park?”

Fuck, he hadn’t thought that through at all. They’d already planned on going to Inokashira Park. What on earth is Akira Kurusu doing to him? Everything always goes haywire when he’s around, to the point that Goro gets left tongue-tied...

Goro blinks, and realizes that Kurusu looks _really_ flushed for some reason. Is he alright? 

“Are you alright?” he asks, genuinely concerned. “Your face is red…”

“Mhm,” Akira manages, a little bit strangled. “I’m not sick or anything, um, it’s-- it’s the heat. Yeah. It’s July and all but the temperatures are _really_ soaring this year...”

It’s a good excuse, but Goro doesn’t believe him; regardless, he doesn’t intend to pry. “If you say so.” He takes out his phone and swipes around the Maps app. “There’s a cat cafe some stations away from here with air conditioning,” Goro finally suggests. “Shall we go there instead?”

He’s already in too deep. What more could go wrong? 

=

A lot could go wrong, as it turned out. Not at the cat cafe, where Goro burned into his brain the view of Akira playing with and cooing at twelve different cats, looking like he was in heaven.

No, things went wrong in Leblanc’s attic. Early October.

“You’re telepathetic?” Goro asks, horrified. The rest of the Phantom Thieves are with him, and with every passing second, things are going more and more to shit.

“Hey, take that back! Akira ain’t pathetic!” Sakamoto yells back indignantly; at the same time, Makoto pinches the bridge of her nose and mutters, “It’s _telepathic.”_

“You can read minds,” Goro rephrases dumbly. 

“Yeah,” Akira rubs the back of his neck sheepishly and nods, wincing. “So, uh. Don’t kill Haru’s dad next week? Please?”

Haru Okumura herself sits politely in a nearby chair with her ankles crossed, staring daggers at Goro while she takes a long, damning sip from her coffee mug. Futaba clicks and clacks away at her laptop, appearing indifferent but clearly tense.

“We would have known all about your impending betrayal even without Akira being a mind-reader, if it’s any help,” Kitagawa says completely unhelpfully.

“He’s right,” Takamaki pipes up, hovering near the stairs lest he try to flee the scene. “You replied to Morgana back at the TV station with the whole line about pancakes, and we all noticed.”

“Yeah, dude,” Sakamoto crossed his arms. “Actually, it was one of the first few things we debriefed new members with every time someone joined.”

Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. He’s totally being filmed on some hidden camera show. That’s it, right? Or this is some really really shitty afterlife he’s been sent to, or else it’s a very visually well-rendered dream.

Akira raises a brow. “This isn’t a dream, Akechi.” . 

Goro furrows his brows, thinking to himself. _If I leap across the table and pull out a gun--_

“Don’t leap across the table and pull out a gun, there are customers downstairs,” Akira frowns at him. The other Phantom Thieves startle in Akira’s direction, then glare at Goro again, like they’re watching a table tennis match.

Goro is nothing if not determined. _If I leap across the table and kiss Akira long enough to distract him, THEN pull out a gun--_

Akira coughs, face reddening. “Don’t do that either. I did say there are people around, didn’t I?”

_Damn him, he’s actually a telepath._

“Are you still doubting that?” Akira asks, amused.

“Rest in peace, pancake boy,” Morgana swishes his tail smugly. “The jig is up.”

Goro stays quiet.

His life might as well be for naught at this point. Everything he’s been working towards, gone in dumpster fire. All the thoughts he felt were private, available to nobody, not so.

~~Shido~~ His boss will kill him if this gets out. There’s so much left that has to happen. Goro wants to scream. Goro was supposed to--

“If you’re still hesitant about joining us, or thinking of betraying us or killing me,” Akira says carefully, “we’re aware of Masayoshi Shido’s crimes. On top of everything he’s done to you and all the people he’s targeted, he’s responsible for framing me for assault too. We intend to target him after we take care of Okumura and Sae Niijima. So...”

Oh, fuck _everything._

=

Of course, the most soul-crushing events tend to feel drastically underwhelming in comparison to the fallout after all is said and done.

Defeating Shido felt good. Defeating Yaldabaoth felt good. Being… _friends_ with the Phantom Thieves felt good. For lack of a better word. Their way of fighting and clearing Palaces in the Metaverse was much different from Goro’s usual modus operandi, but he was getting used to it.

Goro has learned a number of things about Akira’s telepathy in the past few months. It only works in-person, and his ability to read thoughts corresponds to how intensely people feel them. Crowds are hellish as a result; school and the subway system especially. 

He’s also learned a lot about Akira himself. Namely that Akira is very fidgety when being properly confessed to, and that his clothes smell even more strongly coffee when they hug, and that he even tastes a little like coffee when they kiss. 

It’s more than anything Goro could’ve asked for a few months ago, but he’s glad for it now.

=

“You looooooove me.”

“Shut up.”

“You think I’m cute, and that I’m endearing, and that I’m a _‘smarmy, smug, attractive, arrogant bastard’_ \--”

“That was months ago, Akira.”

“You think I’m a charming piece of garbage, and you wanna kiss me sooooo bad-- _mmph!”_

=

It’s in late December, after hours in Leblanc and with Morgana gone to Futaba’s house, that Goro learns exactly how bad he is at the art of seduction. 

They’re sitting in one of the booths, Akira with his textbooks open and Goro with a mug of now lukewarm coffee, eyes boring holes at the other boy. 

_Kiss me. Do it. Let’s make out, punk. Or should I kiss you? Let’s put those books aside..._

Akira taps his finger against his cheek with one hand and his pencil against his notebook with the other, feigning obliviousness.

Goro scowls. He certainly won’t beg, but he’s still displeased. _How often do you even get to spend time alone with me?_

“I invited you here to tutor me,” Akira murmurs. “We can do whatever we want after my exams, and on Christmas.”

_Screw Christmas._ Goro rolls his eyes dramatically. _We shot God in the face ahead of schedule and you’re talking to me about final exams and ‘waiting til Christmas’._

“Well, to be fair, it’s less of a religious holiday in this country,” Akira replies, still writing. 

Goro will not accept that as an answer. Absolutely not, given how Akira played the sly fox when it was Goro’s turn to study for his school’s final exams the previous week.

He decides to bring out his most effective weapon.

_Here, look, I’m even putting on strawberry chapstick. Pink and fruity. I am s l o w l y putting strawberry flavored chapstick on my lips. Sooooo slowly. Tantalizingly slow._

Akira’s pencil snaps in his hands. He picks up the broken halves, sets the eraser end aside, and continues writing.

_Gaze upon my visage and be mesmerized. Let the mental image sink into your mind. I am hypnotizing you. Put down your stupid pencil and kiss me already. Taste the strawberry. Joker. Leader of the Phantom Thieves. Jooooker._

Akira bites his lip, fidgeting with his hair but otherwise making no acknowledgement of Goro’s mental yelling. 

Goro stands up, slapping his palms on the table. _Akira. Akira Kurusu. AKIRA. LOOK AT ME. IT’S STRAWBERRY. Come on. COME ON. I know you can read my mind, what are you waiting--_

“Goro,” Akira finally says, strained. “I’m trying to study for finals.”

“You’re at the top of your class,” Goro says aloud, brows furrowing. “Or at least the top ten, if that information is outdated.”

“The grind never stops,” Akira jokes, apparently refusing to look up from his notes. “I could do this tomorrow too, but since I have my notes out _now…_ well, y’know.”

Goro twists his mouth, unimpressed. “You’re making this a competition, huh?”

“Yep,” Akira replies absentmindedly.

“A test of wills,” Goro reiterates flatly, sitting back down. “Endurance training.”

“Good, I’m glad you understand,” Akira quips. 

Every few minutes, Goro stubbornly reapplies his strawberry chapstick, and Akira’s pencil comes dangerously close to snapping again. Goro thinks he ought to go for a mechanical one instead.

“I’ll use what I have,” Akira replies back.

It’s cute how Akira still replies to each of his thoughts even when he’s trying to focus.

“You’re cute, overthinking so much,” Akira smiles to himself. “You ramble a lot and get so lost in your head, I’d find it entertaining if I weren’t trying to study.” He flips a page. “Hey, are multivariable integrals supposed to be solved--”

“Inside-out,” Goro interrupts. He narrows his eyes. “Akira, that’s basic. You didn’t actually forget that, did you?”

“No, I just figured asking you something might distract you from trying to distract me,” Akira explains, unabashed.

The nerve of him. 

Goro sits quietly, fidgeting with the cap of his chapstick and stirring his coffee. Akira’s pencil scritches and scratches, flying across the paper with ease. Clearly Akira doesn’t really need to study. He already knows everything like the back of his hand; he’s just engrossed in the challenge of ignoring Goro.

“That’s not what’s happening here, you conspiracy theorist,” Akira rubs his temple. “There’s a few things I _do_ need to go over, even if I could hypothetically do it later.” 

“...” Goro blinks at him, uncapping his chapstick one more time and thoughtlessly applying a new layer to his lips. “You know, I’ve always wondered something.”

“What now?” Akira sighs.

Goro smacks his lips together with a pop, then caps the chapstick. “If you examine the underlying themes of the movie adaptation of NEO Featherman VII, it actually goes along startlingly well with Hegelian thought--”

Akira lets out a frustrated growl, then surges forward, yanking Goro by his coat collar into a searing kiss.

Yep. Strawberry was a good decision.

_I won,_ Goro thinks smugly, only to gasp when Akira tangles his fingers in his hair and _tugs._

“You asked for this,” Akira tsks with a slight grin, then leans back in to slip in his tongue.

The textbooks, notes, and pens judge them from the floor where they’ve been swept aside. Goro’s too giddy to care.

He’s got other things on his mind, after all.

-

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! :D Glad I got this self indulgent nonsense fic out of my system after all these months agkljdskf
> 
> Check out my other fics if you're interested, or hit me up on [tumblr](http://khattikeri.tumblr.com/) and [twitter!](https://twitter.com/khattikeri)


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